


You Make My Life Complete

by mcgarrygirl78



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Drama, F/M, Family, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-22
Updated: 2014-04-22
Packaged: 2018-01-20 10:09:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1506617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcgarrygirl78/pseuds/mcgarrygirl78
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beth’s heart, her capacity to love and make everyone around her feel loved was amazing.  How he ever got so lucky sometimes still kept Hotch up thinking past his bedtime.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Make My Life Complete

**Author's Note:**

> This is a future fic that bounced into my mind a few months ago and I was swirling it around in there and seeing if it works. I think it does. Canon seems to never want to do anything else where these two characters are concerned so I thought I’d give it a try. They deserve to be happy together forever.

** April 15, 2015 **

“Mrs. Rigby, we really appreciate you being able to contend with our schedules.” Hotch walked into the kitchen. “Sometimes it can be a bit hectic but making sure we do everything needed for the program is important to Beth and myself.”

“It’s really important.” Beth smiled and nodded as Hotch joined them at the table. “We know it can take time but we’re both ready to put in the work to provide a safe space for a needy child.”

“CFSA has been quite impressed with the two of you so far.” Dana Rigby said as she sipped the tea in front of her. “All the background checks and home inspections have gone wonderfully. There were even A’s on the surprise inspections. Your references, family, and friends were all very cooperative and helpful. 

“They seem as excited as you are about this process, which we haven’t always found to be the case. CFSA is a big fan of ‘it takes a village to raise a child’. Not having that extra support, even just a shoulder to lean on outside of being a parent, can be quite difficult. After going through many records I found quite a few children that would benefit from being part of this family. I know you both have stated that straight adoption is a better road for you to take at this time.”

“We want a child.” Hotch said. He put his hand on top of Beth’s. “Coming from a law background myself, I know many children in CFSA care come from situations where they're still in legal custody of parents or family members. We’re not afraid of waits or court dates. But for our peace of mind, and surely the child’s, an extended battle wouldn’t be good for any of us.”

“I understand, Agent Hotchner.” Dana bent to retrieve a folder from her soft leather briefcase. She opened it, sliding it across the table to them. “This is Liesel Perez.”

“Liesel?” Hotch looked at her. “Like _16 Going on 17_ , Liesel?”

“That’s who she was named after. Her mother is a huge _Sound of Music_ fan. Liesel will be four at the end of June and has been in CFSA custody almost entirely since she was two.”

“She’s beautiful.” Beth smiled at the little girl’s photo. Her smile seemed genuine but there was sadness and even some fear in her big, brown eyes. In the photo there were afro puffs in her hair. She wore a blue and white striped sweater, which appeared to have a recent mustard stain on it. “There's no family…she's out in the world all alone?”

“On the contrary,” Dana said. “There's nearly too much family. Liesel’s mother is Hispanic and her father African-American; there are large families on both sides. Her mother was 17 when she was born. She left Liesel in the custody of her older sister when Liesel was eight months. She lived there until she was 22 months. CFSA was called by another maternal family member who thought the sister’s boyfriend was verbally and physically abusing her.”

“Were there any signs of sexual abuse?” Hotch asked.

“No, and Liesel has had several full medical examinations. She was removed from the home when the boyfriend nearly broke her nose. The paternal grandmother got involved, considered raising the child though I'm not sure that her heart was in it completely. For the next year there were plenty of court dates and Liesel was bounced around to at least four family members on both sides and some foster homes. 

“Everyone was accusing everyone else, it nearly got physical at one of the hearings. It took an emotional toll on her and I requested we put a stop to it. That was a tough decision to make; we never like breaking up families. But at the end of the day CFSA is here for the child. The judge ordered her up for adoption.”

“Where are her mother and father?” Beth asked.

“We aren't entirely sure.” Dana replied. “She dropped out of high school while pregnant but received her GED as part of a teen mother program. Her caseworker thought she might make it but she didn’t take well to motherhood. According to some family members, she moved to Reno to work and start her life over. They say she really expected her sister to take care of Liesel. 

“The other sister had a child of her own, an apartment, and small amounts of money were being sent for her care. It just didn’t work out. We've never had eyes on the father and his mother isn’t giving us much info. We know he's not in the system. We checked corrections, the military; all of it. He's a ghost as of right now and has never really been in her life.”

“What has Liesel’s life been like for the past year?” Beth couldn’t stop staring at the picture.

“As I said, she bounced around a lot. Four months ago an adoption fell through due to a couple filing for divorce. She's a wonderful little girl, not without her problems of course. What Liesel needs is love, stability, and affection.”

“Tell us more about her.” Hotch said.

“She loves hot dogs and fruit snacks.” Dana said. “She always sits still when _Adventure Time_ is on and enjoys coloring and story time. Her favorite is _Berenstain Bears_ books. Liesel also seems to have a proficiency for puzzles. One thing I've noticed, almost since the time I met her, is that she is shy around men she does not know. The word apprehensive might even be used. Liesel is sweet, quiet, and curious. I'm positive that a good family will result in good things for her.”

“We want her.” Beth said.

“Sweetie,” Hotch looked at his wife. “We don’t want to jump the gun. It’s going to be a life-changing decision for all of us.”

“Its late,” Mrs. Rigby took the file and put it back in her briefcase. “You two should talk about it, really weigh the pros and cons. It’s my job to match children with families. It doesn’t always work out but I've spent a lot of time thinking about this particular one. Still, the final decision is yours.” She stood up. “Thank you for being able to see me at this hour.”

“Thank you.” Hotch shook her hand.

“I’ll walk you out, Mrs. Rigby.”

“Thank you. Goodnight, Agent Hotchner.”

“Goodnight.”

000

“I'm sorry.” Beth walked back into the kitchen.

“Whatever you're apologizing for sweetie, I'm sure you don’t have to.” Hotch was standing in front of the sink washing out dishes. He turned to look at Beth. “Unless you drank the last of my whiskey…that would be bad. Did you?”

“No.” she smiled as she shook her head. “I'm apologizing for jumping the gun on Liesel.”

“You want to be a mother; I didn’t think you jumped the gun.”

“But we’re not supposed to look so needy.”

“Beth, she's a child not a car. We’re allowed to be a little excited.”

“I know.”

“C'mere,” Hotch smiled. His dimples filled his cheeks as he held out his hands for her. “She was a beautiful little girl. She's exactly what we were thinking about since we’ve started the entire process. But there are some things we still need to discuss.”

“Like what?” Beth asked. 

She was ready to jump right in and thought her husband was too. While they'd only been married for five months, they’d been together for three and a half years. Sometimes newlywed couples worried that starting a family so fast could affect their relationship with each other. That didn’t concern Beth since Hotch was a father from the moment she met him. They spent years apart when they lived in different cities…the couple was all about making the most out of little amounts of time.

They both knew adoption was the route they would take to have more children. The process started last June, four months after the couple got engaged. There were interviews and inspections and personal questions most would bristle to answer. Every part of their relationship, and their separate lives, was up for scrutiny. If one or the other backed out now, it would’ve all been in vain.

“I know that you and I are ready.” He replied. “But we have to think about some of the obstacles we could face raising Liesel.”

“Are you talking about the fact that she's biracial?”

“That doesn’t concern or bother me. Unfortunately you and I are not the only people in the world.”

“Well I know that there are lots of minority children in the system.” Beth said. “The chances of us ending up adopting a non-white child was high. It never mattered one way or another for me.”

“We have to be prepared to make sure that we emphasis our child’s culture and history to her. I don’t want Liesel to grow up in a whitewashed world because she has white parents.”

“That’s not going to happen.” Beth shook her head. “I don’t want Jack growing up in a whitewashed world just because he happens to have white parents either. I want to share so many different cultures and histories and art with them. I want to make sure Liesel always knows how beautiful and strong she is. I want Jack to know the power of kindness and curiosity, two qualities he has in abundance. I'm ready.”

“And you’ve talked about it with your family?” Hotch asked.

“My mom and I talk about it all the time; you know that. She's so excited for more grandchildren. It'll give her the excuse she needs to come and visit for a ridiculous amount of time until she probably drives us both crazy. She’s in full Mom-Mom mode.”

“Yeah.” Hotch tried to smile.

“What's the matter?”

“How do you mean?”

“You are really adorable when you're stalling. Let’s sit.”

Beth led Hotch by the hand back to the table. He sat in one of the chairs, surprised when his wife sat on his lap. She did that and had done it since they got married. When she wanted to talk about him, comfort him, get something out of him, Beth would sit on his lap. Hotch wasn’t prepared to argue with this. It really did make him feel better, more comfortable when he had to open himself. All these years and it still wasn’t easy. Beth did everything she could to make it possible, and bearable.

“Talk to me, Aaron.”

“I'm not entirely sure what to say.”

“What's holding you back?” Beth asked.

“Nothing is holding me back.” Hotch shook his head.

“Did someone say something to you? Did they make you feel uncomfortable about adopting a non-white child? I know you haven’t been talking about this with anyone other than close friends and family. I can't imagine anyone close to us...” Beth sighed. “Well, sometimes even when you know people you don’t quite know them at all.”

“The few people I've talked to about this are 150% behind us. I talked to my parents about it a couple of weeks ago. I waited longer than I should have because I wasn’t sure how my mother would react.”

“Why would she react badly?”

Beth didn’t know Amelia Hotchner-Preston that well. To say Hotch was estranged from his mother and stepfather, as he had been from his brother for so many years, would be incorrect. He loved them. Home just had a lot of bad memories and hurt feelings…going back there was never easy. 

Even when his mother came to him, it was always in the air. Beth had spent time with her on more than one occasion. She found Amelia to be graceful, cordial, and quintessentially Southern. It wasn’t quite _Gone with the Wind_ or _Cat on a Hot Tin Roof_ , but it was somewhere in between. Maybe _Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil_ with a dash of _Ya-Ya Sisterhood_ …or something like that.

“It’s not about race.” Hotch said quickly. He didn’t want Beth thinking his mother was a racist, which she wasn’t. She was however a Southern elitist and sometimes it was difficult to tell the difference. Not because of anything she said but because these days, and surely days past, people used class instead of race so they wouldn’t be labeled for what they really were. “She worries about soiling the family name. She worries that if you bring a child into the family having no idea where the child comes from, they’re bringing God knows what to the table.”

“So would a grandchild who came from my womb.” Beth said. “A child is not someone who can be manipulated into whatever you want them to be. They’re human beings, not Play-Doh.”

“Spoken like a true New Englander.” Hotch tightened his arms around her waist and kissed her cheek. “I'm not going to let my mother’s worries influence how we start and raise a family. I just know how much she loves Jack. I never want Liesel, or any other child for that matter, to feel like a first runner up every time she comes to visit. I remember that feeling and that feeling sucked.”

“Your parents rarely come.” Beth said. “I'm not saying they never will but believe me Aaron, you will see a very different side of me if your mother tries to pull something like that. We’re a family. You, me, Jack, and Liesel. We will all be respected and treated as Hotchners or none of us will.”

“Damn, Liesel’s already a Hotchner?” Hotch quirked his eyebrow and smiled. Beth’s heart, her capacity to love and make everyone around her feel loved was amazing. How he ever got so lucky sometimes still kept Hotch up thinking past his bedtime.

“I want to do this.”

“I know.” he nodded. “I want to do it too. Mrs. Rigby has been doing this job for 27 years. If she thinks Liesel is a good match for our family then I can only think she’s right. I want to ask more questions though.”

“So do I. I want to talk about her biological family and see what kind of information we can get on exactly what her ethnicities are. Knowing these things will be important to her throughout her life.”

“You're really amazing.” Hotch caressed her face. “You're going to be this top-notch, amazing mom and I'm going to be the mostly absentee dad. Liesel will barely know me.”

“That’s not going to happen.” Beth shook her head. “After we get the process rolling and she comes to stay with us, we want our 30 days Hotchner. You promised me.”

“I did, didn’t I?”

“You did. You know that Derek and Dave will take care of anything the team needs. I’ll even allow one BAU powwow a day without question. Any more than that will have to be discussed on the case by case basis.”

“One a day?” he spoke the words in a low tone.

“You're going to be so busy spending time with your kids and wife that you'll forget all about work.” Beth smiled. “We have that effect on you.”

That was true and not true at the same time. With Beth, and Jack, Hotch was rarely thinking about all the bad things happening in the world that his unit rushed to take care of. But part of that was because when the phone rang, when it was time to go, Beth never stopped him. She didn’t always like it and sometimes made that known. 

Accepting Hotch for who he was had been part of their relationship from the beginning. And sometimes who he was required travel; both mentally and physically. It could be a strain sometimes but Beth never once worried that he rushed out on a case because he wanted to be away from them. His love was strong and he made it clear, even from thousands of miles away sometimes.

“You're ready for this.”

Beth knew it wasn’t quite a question but it still was. She also knew that Aaron was asking himself more than he was asking her. She had been ready for years. She’d been even readier after meeting Jack. By the time she and Aaron were married, Beth was past ready. She wanted to be a mother. 

She wanted a son and daughter. She wanted to teach her children things, take them places, and read them stories at night. She wanted to make lunches and go to parent-teacher conferences. She wanted to hear ‘I love you’ and run around the house in a superhero cape. Parenthood wasn’t all fun and rainbows but she was ready for that too. She was just ready.

“We can sleep on this.” She said. “It’s probably better if we do. You did say you wanted this.”

“I do.” Hotch assured her. “I just…there were so many times I wasn’t there for Jack. There are still times when I'm not there. Now there's going to be someone else I'm letting down.”

“If you think that a busy job means you're letting your kids down…” Beth sighed. “I don’t know what to say about that, Aaron. If people waited until they had all the time in the world to have a family then the world population would be in serious trouble.”

“Yeah, I know.” He nodded. Then he kissed her lips. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” She brushed his black hair back from his forehead. “You wanna go to bed?”

“I want to go to the bedroom.” Hotch smiled. “I’ll clarify. I want to check on Jack, and then go to the bedroom.”

“I’ll lock up down here.” Beth hopped off her husband’s lap.

“Are you sure? I can do that.”

“Aaron, I handle things pretty well when you’re not here.” She smiled. “I'm down to only checking if it’s all done twice.”

“I'm here now.” He stood and pulled her close. 

“And we’re thrilled that you are.” Beth patted his cheek. “Go and kiss your son…I’ll lock up.”

“Our son.”

Beth was walking away but she stopped when he said it. Turning, she put her hand over her heart and took a deep breath. Hotch knew she was trying not to get too emotional. It felt right so he said it. 

She was Jack’s mother now. No, she wasn’t his biological mother and never would be. He’d had four years with an amazing mother. But Haley was gone now and Beth was there. 

She was there for the homework, the booboos, the endless questions, the laughter, the tears, and everything in between. She loved Jack as if he had come from her womb and Hotch knew it. It wasn’t always easy for him to put into words. Jack was his son; he’d known that love and doubt and fear and wonder from the moment he came into the world. 

To know that someone else felt the same about him, wholly and without reservation, wasn’t always easy for him to wrap his mind around. Unconditional love was difficult but Beth had it in abundance. Liesel was going to be such a lucky little girl to experience it. He was a lucky man.

“Don’t make me cry, Aaron Hotchner.” She said, walking out of the kitchen.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

***


End file.
